Creators Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg delivered a crackerjack series with The Studio, on Apple TV+. The satirical show, which looked into the trials and tribulations and behind-the-scenes drama revolving around movie productions, studio executives, greedy studio heads, and passionate filmmakers, is an example of peak ingenuity, with its principal characters encountering a unique challenge in each episode where the filmmaking approach fittingly reflected elements that tie into the subject at hand. Besides, the jokes come from a place of authenticity, and one imagines the whole experience must've felt quite therapeutic to everyone involved. It got me thinking of every film and TV series that explored behind-the-scenes drama in similarly inventive — and, of course, therapeutic — ways. Here goes...
The Player
Of course, this Robert Altman film had to be first on this list, because it's the first thing I immediately thought of after completing The Studio, which I'm sure owes a great deal to the satirical picture that adopted a similar approach to humour — and the numerous cameos of celebrities playing themselves!
The Big Picture
One of Kevin Bacon's best (and underappreciated) early films in which he plays a talented up-and-coming filmmaker who, after winning a film contest, secures a golden opportunity to direct a feature for a big studio, only to get a rude awakening in the process that eventually humbles him and leads him to the right people.
The Offer
Another underappreciated property, streaming on JioHotstar in India, that presented a cinematic, slightly fictionalised account of the not-so-smooth production of The Godfather with actor Dan Fogler as director Francis Ford Coppola, Patrick Gallo as author-screenwriter Mario Puzo, Miles Teller as producer Albert S. Ruddy, and Matthew Goode as Paramount studio head Robert Evans.
Day for Night
Francois Truffaut, starring and directing, presents a film-within-a-film narrative — the plot of the film in production running concurrently with the behind-the-scenes drama stemming from the cast's behaviour-related issues — in a narrative chronicling the travails of a fictional filmmaker named Ferrant while shooting his new project.
Jubilee
Vikramaditya Motwane's grandiose period epic, set against the backdrop of the Partition of India, tracks a group of fictional characters inspired by real-life figures trying to make it big in the film industry. The 10-episode show, streaming on Prime Video, boasts strong performances from the principal cast members and top-notch production value.
Hail, Caesar!
The Coen Brothers' trademark dark humour once again works in favour of this quirky tale led by Josh Brolin as the extremely reliable production head and 'fixer' juggling multiple problems, including finding out what happened to the half-witted lead actor (George Clooney playing against type) who went missing while shooting for a Roman epic.
Ed Wood
An excellent biopic set in 1952, of the "worst director in cinema history" that had director Tim Burton drawing from the best of noir and 1950s' classics to deliver wholesome storytelling while actors Johnny Depp (as Ed Wood) and Martin Landau (as horror legend Bela Lugosi) demonstrate some of their finest performances.
The Bad and the Beautiful
Speaking about 1952, here's a film made in that year, by Vincente Minnelli, which employs an interesting narrative format to tell the story of a group of three friends — an actress, a writer, and a director — whose relationship with a movie producer is strained, the reasons for which are revealed in flashbacks.
In the Soup
An exaggerated, comedic version of director Alexandre Rockwell's own experiences as a down-on-the-luck movie aspirant, In the Soup had Steve Buscemi playing an independent filmmaker whose screenplay is bought by a mobster. It marked Steve Buscemi's first lead role in the same year as his breakthrough in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs.
Living in Oblivion
Three years later, Buscemi would once again depict another real-life independent filmmaker's struggles. In this case, it's Tom DiCillo, who used the satirical, low-budget feature as a form of therapy to exorcise inner demons that tormented him in the form of production woes while making his debut feature Johnny Suede starring Brad Pitt.
Babylon
While on Brad Pitt, the actor played a dommed movie star in Damien Chazelle's wildest, most ambitious film yet which demystified the glitz and glamour of showbiz, painting an unattractive, yet strangely alluring, portrait of a harsh, competitive place where only the thick-skinned survive.
The Aviator
If Martin Scorsese's unconventional biopic of Howard Hughes has taught us anything, it's that being rich doesn't exactly guarantee the disappearance of all your troubles. In this exceptionally crafted period epic, Leonardo DiCaprio played the eccentric real-life who was obsessed with designing aeroplanes and movies whilst battling mental and physical health issues.
Get Shorty
The lives of mobsters and filmmakers become intertwined in this hilarious dark comedy from the imagination of bestselling author Elmore Leonard, whose novel of the same name served as the basis for this Barry Sonnenfeld movie starring John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Delroy Lindo, Danny DeVito, Rene Russo, Dennis Farina, and James Gandolfini.
The Fabelmans
Imagine a blockbuster filmmaker being brave enough to make a small, personal film about his troubled childhood, yet without compromising on the superior filmmaking craft that characterises all his big-scale blockbusters, and without being self-indulgent. In Steven Spielberg's own words, The Fabelmans was his form of self-therapy — one that cost $40 million to make!
